President Obama Made to All But One States With Utah Visit

President Barack Obama spoke in front of an array of solar panels at Hill Air Force Base in Utah earlier today, announcing a new program "the Solar Ready Vets" aiming to employ veterans in the solar energy industry, which the base will participate in with other military installations nationwide.

View image | gettyimages.com

Obama met with top leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in Salt Lake City yesterday to discuss the church's services in disaster relief and other humanitarian issues, and the need to overhaul the U.S. immigration system. Obama made his first visit to Utah after he traveled from Louisville, Kentucky earlier Thursday on April 2, 2015.

That left South Dakota as the only state which he hasn't traveled to during his presidency.

Postcard US-3135228 to Poland was a vintage card showing the Temple Square in the center of Salt Lake City, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Built in 1853, it was designated as U.S. National Historic Landmark District in 1964, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.

Moominppapa at Sea

Postcard FI-2342261 from Finland shows an illustration of Tove Marika Jansson (August 9, 1914 – June 27, 2001), a Swedish-speaking Finnish author and illustrator from Moominppapa at Sea.

With her first book of the semi-autobiographical Bildhuggarens dotter (Sculptor's Daughter) in 1968, she had published six novels and five books of short stories for adults. However, in the PostCrossing world, she is best known for the Moomin cards with illustrations from her Moomin books for children.

The first Moomin book The Moomins and the Great Flood was published in 1945. However, it wasn't until the next two books, Comet in Moominland (1946) and Finn Family Moomintroll (1948), when Moomins gained a great deal of popularity.

Moomins had lived in Moominvalley for a while, until the family decided that they needed a change and moved to a lighthouse on a tiny island. In this Volume 7 of Moomins, "they find space to grow, and to do things they couldn't in their comfortable, cluttered valley home. As they discover their new home, the family also discover surprising, and wonderfully funny, new things about themselves."

Tove Jansson won the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966 for her contribution as a children's writer.

Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston

Postcard US-3230012 from Boston was a shaped card showing Faneuil Hall Marketplace near the waterfront and today's Government Center in Boston, Massachusetts. Built in 1743, it has been served as a marketplace and a meeting hall since. Because its significance in history as the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others encouraging independence from Great Britain, it is known as "the Cradle of Liberty." Faneuil Hall was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1960. One of those famous stops on the Freedom Trail, Faneuil Hall Marketplace is part of Boston National Historical Park that was added to National Register of Historic Places in 1966.

Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade made history today as two LGBT groups marched for the first time after decades of opposition. In 1995, the parade organizers took its battle to exclude LGBT groups to the U.S. Supreme Court and won on First Amendment grounds. Boston’s mayors had boycotted the event since. With an inclusive parade this year, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and other political leaders such as first-term U.S. Representative Seth Moulton took part.

Boston broken another record today after receiving 2.9-inch snow by Sunday evening. A seasonal total of 108.6 inches so far, it has broken Boston’s old record of 107.6 inches since the winter of 1995-96. The buildup of previous snow on side streets even caused the organizers of the St. Patrick's Day Parade, billed as the second largest in the U.S. in terms of spectators, to shorten the route.

Daylight Saving Time Starts in 2015, But Not in Hawaii

Daylight Saving Time (DST) starts today at 2 a.m. on March 8, 2015 in most parts of the U.S. except in the states of Arizona and Hawaii, and the overseas territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. As clocks "spring forward" one hour, spring is in the air.

Hawaii is in the Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone; Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time (HST) is equivalent to GMT/UTC - 10h Standard Time. When the United States enacted the Uniform Time Act in 1966, Hawaii opted out in 1967, mainly because there is not a large variation in daylight hours from summer to winter due to Hawaii's proximity to the Equator. The Territorial Legislature enacted a bill placing Hawaii on daylight saving time in 1933, but the law was repealed three weeks later. According to Wikepedia, during World War II between February 9, 1942 and September 30, 1945, Hawaiian Standard Time was advanced one hour to so-called "Hawaiian War Time." That was the only period when Hawaii was effectively placed on year-round daylight saving time.

Postcard US-3230216 from California shows a NASA image of the entire Hawaiian Island chain as seen from the Space Shuttle. Niihau and Kauai are in the foreground followed by Oahu, Molokai, Lanai and Maui, with the Big island in the distance. The curve of the Earth and the black of outer space can be seen on the top of the card.

Natural Beauty at Guinsa, South Korea

Postcard KR-104756 from South Korea shows a scenic drive led to Guinsa (救仁寺), Buddhism Temple of Salvation and Kindness, in the Sobaek Mountains near Danyang, South Korea. Originally built in 1945, Guinsa was burned down during the Korean War; and the reconstruction started in 1966. The campus, placed along a narrow valley surrounded on all sides by mountains, was chosen according to head monk Sangwol Wongak's (上月圓覺) interpretation of the Lotus Sutra (妙法蓮華經).

San Francisco Cable Car: 141 Years

Postcard US-2468742 to Czech Republic shows the iconic San Francisco Cable Car, one of the most popular attractions in the city, with Alcatraz Island in the background. It is the last manually-operated cable car system in the world. At its heyday, there were twenty-three cable car lines established between 1873 and 1890. Three lines remain today: the Powell-Mason line that begins at the Powell@Market turntable, runs up and over Nob Hill and then down to Fisherman's Wharf; the Powell- Hyde line that also begins at the Powell@Market turntable, runs over Nob and Russian hills before ending at Aquatic Park near Ghiradelli Square near Fisherman's Wharf; the California Street line that runs East-West from the Financial District, through Chinatown, over Nob Hill, and ends at Van Ness Avenue. The cable car on the postcard runs on the Powell-Hyde line.

141 years ago today, the San Francisco Cable Car started as the Clay Street Hill Railroad, first opened on August 2, 1873. The cable cars were listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966, and designated as a U.S. National Historic Landmark on January 29, 1964.

Ellis Island

Postcard US-2452555 to Japan shows Ellis Island, gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States and the busiest immigrant inspection station in the country from 1892 to 1954. The island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965. Together, Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island and Liberty Island was designated a U.S. National Register of Historic Place on October 15, 1966. The island has been closed to the public due to damages from Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. It is scheduled to re-open in 2014.

The photo on the card was taken during my trip to New York City with my BluePass by JetBlue on November 21, 2011. The postcard is overdue with a dozen of others (see my blog on November 18, 2012) that were sent out around October 14, 2012. A replacement card has been sent recently.

The Tower at University of Texas, Austin

This postcard shows the main building at the center of the University of Texas at Austin campus in Downtown Austin, Texas on September 16, 2010. I was traveling from Dallas, Texas to Las Vegas, Nevada that day on my Jetblue All-You-Can-Jet (AYCJ) pass. However, since JetBlue did not have flights to or from Dallas, I took a bus to Austin in the morning for an afternoon flight to Long Beach, California, then onto Las Vegas. I had a few hours around noon, so I took a quick tour at University of Texas at Austin, and had lunch in a Thai restaurant near the campus.

The Main Building is known as "The Tower" since it has a 94 m or 307 ft tall clock tower, designed by architect Paul Philippe Cret and completed in 1937. It is the most recognizable landmark of the University and the city Austin. 

In a massacre on August 1, 1966, architectural engineering student Charles Joseph Whitman, opened fire from the observation deck of the tower of the Main Building, killing 16 Austin residents and wounding many more. He was shot to death by police at the end of 96-minute stand-off.

Lake Baikal, Russia

Lake Baikal, Russia

The postcard RU-1836095 received yesterday shows Lake Baikal, a rift lake, in Siberia, Russia. Lake Baikal is the most voluminous freshwater lake in the world. It is also the deepest (1,642 m or 5,387 ft); the clearest;  and the oldest (25 million years) of all lakes.

Lake Baikal area is home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, with 2/3 of those being unique to the region. It was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.

Miranda Warning

Statue of Liberty

I will use my Statue of Liberty postcard to mark the US Supreme Court ruling in Miranda v. Arizona forty seven years ago on June 13, 1966. It requires that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them. The purpose is to ensure that the accused is aware of, and reminded of, their rights under the U.S. Constitution; and that they know they can invoke them at any time during the interrogation.

The postcard was made using one of my photos at Walmart.com Photo Center.